[Advaita-l] Tattvabodha of Adi Sankaracharya - 27

[S Jayanarayanan]

(Continued from previous post)
 
 
>From sAttvic aspect of  -  Evolves
----------------------------------
AkASa  -  Ear
VAyu  -  Skin
Agni  -  Eye
Apah  -  Tongue
Prithivi  -  Smell
Total of all five  -  antaHkaraNa
 
 
Definition of antahkaraNa:
 
 sa~NkalpavikalpAtmakaM manaH .
 
Mind is of the nature of oscillations/doubt.
 
Reflects the indecisive nature of a person when
one's mind vacillates between opposite
thoughts. Here samkalpa refers to positive
thoughts and vika/pa refers to the opposite
thoughts.
 
 nishchayAtmikA buddhiH .
 
Intellect is of the nature of decision.
 
The inner equipment - intellect - is the same
as the mind, except that when the equipment
functions in a decisive manner, it is called
buddhi: It is the deciding or cognitive faculty
which involves in analysis and enquiry about
any problem to arrive at a solution.
 
 aha.nkartA aha.nkAraH .
 
"I am the doer" - this idea is the ego.
 
This refers to the the function of antahkaraNa
which is responsible for the "I" notion in the
individual. Also, refers to pride and has the
sense of ownership or doer- ship.
 
 chintanakartR^i chittam .
 
The thinking faculty (or the faculty of remem-
brance) is citta.
 
This is the function of the antahkaraNa respon-
sible for the remembrance of past knowledge
and experience (a storehouse of information)
to provide guidance to the intellect in decision
making.
 
Among these four inner instruments, manas,
buddhi and citta replace each other depend-
ing on the situation , while, the ego - ahamkAra
is present always!
 
Presiding Deities for the inner Equipments:
 
 manaso devatA chandramAH .
 
The presiding deity of the mind is the Moon.
 
 buddherbrahmA .
 
For the intellect, it is brahmA.
 
 aha.nkArasya rudraH .
 
For the ego, it is Rudra.
 
 chittasya vAsudevaH .
 
For citta, (the presiding deity is) vAsudeva.
 
Thus the saatvic nature of all the five
tanmAtras is responsible for the make-up of
manomaya and vnAnamaya koSAs, which in-
clude the mind, intellect and the five sense
organs of perception.
 
We will continue with the discussion of the
evolution of the raajasic and taamasic aspects
in the next article.
 
References / Source Material
1.	Tattvabodha of Sankaracharya, Central
Chinmaya Mission Trust, Bombay. 1995.
2.	Tattvabodha - Lectures by Swami
Paramarthananda, Madras.
 
 
(Continued in next post)